Answer My Cries
by Jet44
Summary: Dean screamed for Sam when he was in Hell. He's doing it again in his nightmares, and this time Sam can answer. When talking and a dysfunctional solution or two fail to help Dean sleep without descending into unspeakable trauma, Sam finally takes matters into his own hands. Turns out the best way to make Dean Winchester sleep is to pin him down and cuddle the Hell out of him.
1. Chapter 1

The first time Sam was awakened by Dean screaming his name, he sprung to his feet, gun in hand. His brother was face down on the bed, arms and legs outstretched spread-eagle. His head was thrown back in a scream, and every muscle was quivering.

It was before The Conversation. Before Dean admitted he remembered Hell. Before ripping Sam's heart apart choking his way through the confession of what he'd done there.

He knew Dean well enough to move swiftly out of punching range after waking him up. "Just a nightmare. Let it go, Sam, I'm fine."

Each time it happened, it was an additional night before Dean would even _try_ to sleep again.

* * *

The last straw was the evening a week after The Conversation when Dean punched an alligator.

Sam unloaded ten rounds into the thing while his brother sat there slumped against the Impala, bleeding from the head and daring it to, "Come at me, you son of a bitch!"

"Problem is, it really was coming at you," said Sam, holstering his gun. The Florida humidity did absolutely nothing for their moods, and Sam wiped sweat from his forehead, panting.

Dean staggered to his feet. "I just ganked a damn skunk ape. Think a gator scares me?"

"My point is, it _should_ scare you," said Sam. "And I wouldn't have had to slaughter some poor prehistoric lizard if you hadn't taunted it."

Dean glanced at the gator with a tinge of remorse in his expression. "Let's get outta here."

"Let's tend to that gash on your scalp."

"No." Dean got in the car, slammed the door, and started the engine, and Sam joined him with a sigh.

They peeled out of the gravel parking lot, and directly into the path of an oncoming RV the size of an ocean liner.

"DEAN! Dean!"

Dean jerked, and Sam grabbed the wheel from the passenger seat, yanking them into the correct lane.

"Whooooo! Did you see that?!" Dean flashed Sam an excited look and what he only thought was a charming grin. It was more of an exhausted mask of misery.

"Did I see you almost kill us both? Yes, yes I did. What the hell's the matter with you, Dean? Oh, right. You haven't slept for four days and you _thought an alligator was mocking you_."

Dean's eyes, bloodshot from lack of sleep, flew open wide and he slammed on the brakes in the middle of the highway. "We gotta go back!"

"Uh, why?" Sam's reply was almost drowned out by furious honking behind them.

"Boots! I always wanted a pair of gatorskin cowboy boots. Huh? Huh?"

"So tempted to slap you right now," muttered Sam. "Drive. Or better yet, don't. I don't want you behind the wheel right now. I'm taking over."

When they hit town, Sam pulled into the Orange Gator Motel purely on the basis of their sign boasting the most comfortable beds in town. It was slightly above their usual budget, but he didn't give a crap.

Dean staggered when he slung his bag down beside one of two double beds boasting white sheets, bright orange pillow cases, and faux gator-skin headboards. His eyes were bloodshot, and Sam couldn't even object when Dean glugged the remains of a bottle on his way to the shower. If it might help him sleep...

* * *

Sam couldn't take the screams. Dean was calling for him. The true desperation in his brother's hoarse voice was one of the worst things Sam had ever heard.

He grabbed Dean's shoulder and shook, and he was too slow and sleepy to dodge the fist that collided with his jaw. Sam backed off, sat on the other bed, and held the stinging bruise until Dean stood and stumbled towards him with body language that resembled a dog that'd just peed on the floor.

Dean nudged Sam's fingers out of the way and replaced them with his own, disgusted with himself. He was still breathing heavily from the adrenaline of his nightmare, and his hand shook. But his touch was soft and gentle against Sam's cheek, and he held it too long. It couldn't be plainer that Dean was desperate for comforting physical contact, but something dark in his eyes warned Sam not to touch him.

"Sorry."

"I'd be punchy too," said Sam. "You were screaming my name, Dean. Why?"

Dean backed away and sat heavily on his own bed, rocking the mattress.

"Sam, I was in _Hell_. Literal _Hell_. Excuse me if I wanna leave that behind, okay? If you knew what it was like…." Dean's eyes grew heavy and wounded as his voice choked. "You'd never ask a damn thing that'd make me remember. Only reason I don't put a bullet through my own juicebox is I know where that'll put me."

"I wouldn't," said Sam. "I don't _have_ to know what it was like, I wouldn't ask that of you. But I can't listen to you scream my name without waking you, okay? I can't. _You_ wouldn't be able to look at me stretched out like that and screaming without doing something."

"Sam - when Cass came for me, I wasn't suffering. I was - on the other side. You look at me and see a guy I'm not any more. I was on my way to the black-eyed brigade. I spent - I spent… ten years as the apprentice of Hell's head torturer. I'm more a monster than anything we hunt. I deserve every nightmare. Hell turned me into a guy who deserves Hell, and - and I dread the day you realize that, Sammy."

Sam was filled with longing to hold Dean tight and never let go, but his brother's face told him that would merely get him punched. Dean was no monster, but he was feeling shattered. Dean was good, and kind, and protective. He had been all those things before Hell, and still was.

How to get him to believe that….

* * *

**DEAN**

Dean's mind felt raw, and he was terrified. He needed sleep to be able to cope with the things in his head, and the things in his head weren't letting him. He snapped on a dim bedside lamp and wrapped his fingers around the blankets, trying to ground himself in reality. The mattress and blankets were soft, and unusually clean. Cozy, even.

His head throbbed. His eyes stung. He was dizzy, and his hands shook. Sleep deprivation was a default state for a hunter, and he was used to pushing through it. But this was beyond running on a few hours sleep a night. He wouldn't admit it to Sam, but he'd fallen _asleep at the wheel_ earlier, almost killed them both. And his poor car. Wasn't like she needed to be wrecked again.

He also wasn't about to admit he was so profoundly exhausted, he really kinda hoped the gator would get in a chomp or two. At least then he'd have an excuse to pass out.

Sam was looking at him with that adorable little-brother sweetness and worry that had melted him inside from day one. But Sam wasn't little any longer. He was strong and tough as nails and smart and educated and a damn good hunter.

He was going to have to talk to Sam, and hope to hell the man would listen.

"Look… Sammy, let me say some things. No interruptions, okay? You can fight me later."

"Okay," said Sam, his voice and eyes gentle.

"When I clawed outta that grave, I was Earth me again. I remembered Hell me, but not like I'd just been there. It was context. Like you know how to act different in a church than you do in a dive bar. You're aware of reminding yourself a time or two, but it's not like every word you say has to be calculated. You just turn parts on and off automatically."

"I get that," said Sam.

"Earth me is pretty okay. Really. So long as he doesn't think about Hell me, or connect to that poor son of a bitch emotionally. 'Cause if I do, oh, boy. That guy is so far past traumatized, it's - it's unspeakable. I couldn't form words to-"

Dean stopped himself and drew a deep breath, wiping at the tears in his eyes. "I became something truly evil, Sammy. Yeah, it took a bit to get me there. If Hell me were walking the Earth, it's fifty-fifty. He might be catatonic in a mental hospital shaking and crying. He might be the worst serial killer in history. But whatever he is, it's trauma on a level you do not come back from, or heal from, not ever. There's no fixing that, get me?"

"Yes," said Sam, his voice sober. To Dean's relief, his expression said he was listening for real, and he got it.

"That's why I'm not talkin', Sam. There's a demon on the other side of that wall, and I'm not inviting it for dinner. I got no need to open up to that, and if I do, it might kill me. Or a whole hell of a lot of other poor sons of bitches. But now-"

Dean wiped his face and tried to keep the terror off it, and out of his failing voice. "He's coming out, Sam. He's coming for me in my sleep. I don't - I can't - I'd ask you for help if I knew what to ask. There is no amount of you caring that'll fix this. Castiel said - what he can do for me, he did when he raised me up. I think he's why I'm mostly okay, rest's up to me."

"Dean?" Sam wasn't arguing. He was trying with every fiber of his being to truly comprehend, and relief unwound Dean's clenched fists. He couldn't take a fight with Sam and his immovable opinions right now. "Why you screaming for me?"

"Because I was alone. And I was _terrified_, and I - and I was being slowly ripped apart by meat hooks hanging in a friggin void of outer space and I couldn't take it. All I wanted was you to save me."

Dean was too exhausted, the nightmares too raw, his head hurting too much to filter the scrambled mess into something coherent or strong. "Save me, Sammy. I need you to save me."


	2. Chapter 2

Sam's toes curled, and bile tickled the base of his throat. Dean fought evil professionally. Not because he loved to kill. This was the Dean Winchester who as a child couldn't and more importantly _would not_ shoot a deer, because it was innocent and helpless. Dean fought evil because he wouldn't let terror and pain happen to people if he could help it. Sam's sense of justice was sickened by the wrongness of such horrors having been inflicted on a man who lived to save and protect.

"Dean…. When you go to sleep, you go to your subconscious. And in your subconscious, you're - a lonely, terrified, hurting man screaming for your family. You aren't a demon, or a torturer. You're _you_ in your nightmares of Hell. And - I couldn't hear you then. I couldn't come for you and that - that is never gonna stop hurting. But I hear you now. I can answer you now."

Sam looked at his brother's face, shadowed in the dim light of the single bedside lamp. He was wearing a soft olive brown t-shirt and grey flannel pajama pants, his hair messy and his chin sporting the day's stubble. His eyes were bloodshot, his head held low. But his face... it was haunted, but somehow still open and soft.

This was Dean.

He was protective and tough and the most deeply loving man Sam had ever known. To know he'd become the horror in the night to other souls was incompatible with being Dean Winchester. Dean's whole identity was threatened with shattering, and he was _Dean_ enough to be unable to take that.

"You know - you know how much I wanna hug the crap outta you right now, right?" said Sam.

"Sam, I need you to punch me out," said Dean bluntly. There was a faint hint of longing in his eyes, his only reaction to Sam's hug comment. "Can't get woken up by a nightmare if you're unconscious, right?"

Dean sat with his legs dangling off the side of the bed, facing Sam. He looked small and vulnerable and absolutely zero percent in need of punching. If Dean had grown up protecting and taking care of Sam, Sam had grown up comforting his tough older brother.

He'd seen Dean come back slashed and bruised from hunts. He'd seen Dean in misery and self-blame after "Letting down" their father in some minor transgression. He'd seen Dean lying in bed silently sobbing and holding a photo of mom. Even then, Dean had tried to shoulder every burden onto himself. Sam was the privileged one who got to see Dean with his guard down, vulnerable and sad, and he loved his older brother so much, that was intolerable. He _had_ to hold and comfort Dean, who always gave in ostensibly because Sam needed it.

"Not gonna happen," said Sam. "Brain damage is not a cure for insomnia, even by Dean Winchester logic."

"You're not getting me," said Dean, bearing down on the blankets clenched in his fists. "The side of me that's been to hell _cannot_ be unleashed on this reality. Believe me, the pain isn't gonna register."

"The answer's still no. It's not about pain. It's about not risking real damage, and it's about how up here, we don't beat our family unconscious when they can't sleep."

Dean stood, and rubbed his hands on his pajama-clad legs. "Fine. Let's go."

"Go where?" asked Sam.

"To the sketchiest street corner near any strip club we can find that even I wouldn't walk into without a booster shot for rabies."

"Good plan," said Sam. "Getting HIV from a human trafficking victim _is_ the best cure for PTSD, after all."

"Ewww! No!" Dean looked genuinely indignant. "Roofies and pot and a little something narcotic should do the trick."

"And when we get back here with bath salts, oregano, and an overdose of fentanyl, we're gonna go all CIA and see if we can't use drugs and sleep deprivation to teach you to mind-control goats? You're about to sell me on the beating you unconscious plan."

Dean's forehead crinkled and he blinked rapidly in sleepy confusion. "Mind-control goats? What the fuck, dude?"

"It was a real thing. A terrible, terrible failure of a thing. Just like your plan."

Dean pouted. "No need to be mean about it."

"Maybe we can get Castiel to, like, zap you to sleep or something?" suggested Sam.

"No!" Dean looked almost alarmed by the idea.

"Why not?"

"Because I've had it with angels and demons and being supernaturally yanked around and - I want dominion over my own damn mind," said Dean. "Look…. My body wasn't in Hell, it was in a pine box on Earth. That means every single thing that happened to me down there was an advanced, supernatural mind-fuck. I felt every second like it was real, but if I can just wrap my head around the notion that it didn't happen to me me, not really, I can be okay."

"Sounds like a fancy way to spell repression," said Sam.

Dean's eyes flashed with anger. "Look. I'm back. I don't know how long I got. I don't wanna spend it thinking about hell, or having you look at me like I'm a puppy someone kicked. I wanna hit the road blasting Bob Seger and punch gators and save people and eat bad diner food and have fantastic sex and bicker with my brother about the finer ethical points of hunting wendigos. Hell doesn't get to have me any more, got it?"

"Got it," said Sam, smiling to himself. Dean might be a bit frayed, but he was still Dean all right. "No unnecessary living in the past."

"That's the problem with all that shrink crap," said Dean. "They can't even decide. Repression's bad, feel your feelings and admit your trauma, but oh, move on, don't live in the past."

"I think it's supposed to be a healing process," said Sam. "Feel your feelings, process your trauma, and then move forward."

"I want you do tie me up," said Dean. "Handcuff me. Try - maybe if I can't stretch out like that, my brain won't go there."

Sam tried to keep the horror off his face. Dean had been begging him, essentially, to not even mention Hell. Now the man wanted to invite his nightmares to visit while he was _restrained_ for them?

"No. Never. Just - no."

Dean drew in a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and closed his eyes. "That position - stretched out - that's where they start. Ripping you apart. That's when - I'm screaming for you to save me. I'm asking you to save me. Please. At least try."

"I'll try anything, Dean," said Sam, his voice breaking. "But do you get how awful that is? Sure this isn't a way to punish yourself?"

"Sammy - in Hell, it's with meat hooks and metal spikes. This'd be so…. gentle, it can't possibly -"

"No comparison," said Sam soberly. "Got it. So let me sleep next to you, and hold you. _That's_ gentle."

"No," said Dean, his voice flat and uncompromising. "No. Sam, I am begging you here. If you have any feeling for what it's like to - just trust a damn request for once in your life, please."

"Dude." Sam paused to get his thoughts together, to tell himself not to bulldoze over Dean's plea. "I'm listening. I'm trusting. I'm caring. But... you want me to violently attack you, take away your mental capacity, or render you physically me how that isn't desperate self-loathing? You asked me to save you. That doesn't sound like saving to me, it sounds like you want to be punished."

Dean's face softened; he accepted where Sam was coming from. "I really, really don't want to be punished. I do hate myself. But I just want to sleep without going to hell. If it means I wake up ten times fighting the cuffs because it stops that sequence from initiating, that's better than the alternative. I - just want to be _listened_ to. Please."

Sam's heart broke for the thousandth time at Dean's small-voiced plea to be listened to. It was a broken, nonsensical way to give Dean some small part of his agency back, and probably a really bad idea. But unlike a concussion or drugs, it wouldn't actually hurt him or risk his life.

And maybe when it failed, Dean would allow what he was truly desperate for: someone to hold him and care and not let go.

"Okay," said Sam finally. "I'll tie you up. Just to be clear, when you have another nightmare and the cops bust in here because some poor guy keeps screaming - we going with the kinky sex pretext, or are we telling them you thought it might help your PTSD to wake up _actually restrained_ when you have a nightmare about being restrained and tortured?"

"You're making me sound totally dysfunctional here!" said Dean, his face a sea of un-ironically peeved disgruntlement.


	3. Chapter 3

"Fine," said Sam. "But - it has to be gentle. For me to have any part in this. No cuffs. I can't use anything that'll hurt if you struggle."

Dean's eyes softened. "Wuss."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

"Fine," said Sam, flashing Dean a little grin. "Razor wire it is."

He stopped grinning and shivered when he realized that could easily have been a thing. Dean wasn't smiling either, but he smacked Sam playfully on the upper arm.

"It's over," said Dean. "I'm out. I'm not fixing to spend the rest of my life, however long or short until I go back down there, moping about it or getting all upset whenever someone happens to remind me things exist, you hear me?"

"You're not going back!" Sam's reaction was automatic, then his throat closed in horror. Surely when Dean died - he'd die a hero. A hunter of monsters, a loving brother. If there was anyone who deserved heaven…. But what did they know about how all this worked?

"Sammy, _angels_ have threatened to send me back twice now. Angels. I can't pretend it's out of the question. I can live now, because this is all I might get. But I'm gonna pass out if I don't get some damn sleep."

* * *

Dean set his jaw and tried to breathe evenly. He laid on his side, got his head arranged on his pillow, and put his arms behind his back and his legs together. Truth was, this did scare him some. Not because of Hell, but just because he hated helpless.

Sam was beyond careful. He used broad, soft cotton rope that was gentle on the skin, and while he pulled it tight, he used multiple loops to spread out the pressure. Dean closed his eyes. He could actually see sleeping like this.

A warm touch brushed his right palm, Sam pressing something gently into his hand. It felt like rope.

"I used a slip knot," said Sam. "A couple tugs should get you loose if you need to."

A wash of warmth and peace swept through him. This was the goodness and understanding and love in the little brother he'd cried out so desperately for. This was something he never deserved to feel again, but needed so much he started crying while Sam roped his ankles together.

"Same here," said Sam, patting his leg. "Grab the end of the rope and pull. You'll be loose in seconds when you wanna be, but I think you can fight pretty hard against these and they won't budge or bruise you up too bad."

Sam had the grace not to comment on Dean's quiet, heartfelt sobs. He just spread a blanket over Dean and tucked it lightly around him, leaving a spot where he could hide his face if he wanted.

* * *

Sam straightened and wiped his palms on his jeans, fighting back tears of his own when he saw the moved surrender and tears on Dean's face. Dean so rarely allowed anyone to treat him with any form of care or gentleness. And Sam got why. Dean responded to being treated tenderly with such heartfelt softness and vulnerability, he couldn't afford it often.

Dean _melted_ when people were soft with him. He was moved to tears by the simple act of Sam thinking to give him a way to untie himself. That made the thought of anyone hurting him deliberately, or most horrifying of all, him being in hell, all the harder to bear.

"Don't be lookin' at me like that!" snapped Dean, his voice small and breaking.

"Look at you how?"

"Like I'm - like I'm something good that - that little brother look. I didn't deserve it then or now."

Sam sat on the opposite bed, facing Dean. "You were more of a father to me than dad ever was. When you got it wrong, it was because you were a kid trying his best to be a soldier and a parent and, oh, fight actual, real monsters. It took thirty years of unimaginable suffering before you were willing to hurt another soul. You deserve love, and if I wanna cry in grief for what you've been through, too bad."

"Sammy, I was evil down there. I - did unspeakable things."

"You did them to souls that were in hell," argued Sam. "I'm sure some of them were okay. But you were probably ripping the likes of Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein new assholes too, so - just give yourself a pass, okay?"

Dean physically cringed, and twisted his head to bury it in his pillow. Sam's stomach tightened. He'd wanted to allude to what Dean wouldn't, just to relieve some of that "Sam wouldn't understand" burden. But maybe that wasn't a place he should've gone without permission.

"Sammy, _dad's_ been to hell. I was in hell. How many poor sons of bitches sold their souls for ten years with a wife who had cancer, or to keep a roof over their kid's heads? Yeah, sure, tell me they deserved it."

A chill rippled through Sam's whole being. Try as he might to comfort Dean, he was pretty sure he could never, ever forgive himself either if he were in his older brother's place.

"I hear ya," said Sam softly. "Okay. There's nothing good here. Nothing I can say or do. Other'n I'm still here for you, and nothing changes that. Nothing."

"It should."

"Dean - you know bein' forced to hurt other people is a psychological torture technique, right?"

"Until it ain't," said Dean, his eyes still gentle, and anguished.

"Mind's an expert in adapting to survive," Sam pointed out. "You in particular have always been one of the most adaptable people ever. I don't think you warping to be - okay - with what you were doing is a sign of you turnin' evil."

A look of actual relief crossed Dean's face, and he looked at Sam with almost desperate hope. "Earth me doesn't want to do any of those things. Like, _at all_."

"He's horrified by what Hell Dean had to do for a reason," said Sam. "You didn't deserve Hell then, and you don't deserve it now."

Dean's eyes went soft and vulnerable. His upper lib wibbled. "Yeah?"

Sam got on his knees beside the bed to address Dean at his level. "Yeah."

Dean ground his eyes shut and tried to get his breathing and emotions under control. Sam hesitated, then reached out and patted him on the shoulder. Dean didn't tense or object, so Sam left his hand there, rubbing softly with his thumb.

"Like you said - it was a different context," said Sam. "If you don't want to carry the memories and traumas of it up here to earth, maybe don't carry the guilt either? Trust me, you're still good. You're still Dean. Forgive yourself. If you were some monster, you wouldn't be all guilty and miserable, you'd be hunting your next victim. Right?"

"Right," said Dean with a tiny attempt at a smile. "Lore's just chock full of guilt-ridden monsters eating entrails and moping."

Sam patted his brother one last time and crawled under the covers, facing Dean to keep an eye on him and feeling sick. Tying him up was - so wrong. It was such an awful way for Dean to treat himself, and not terribly logical, and masochistic in that self-punishing Dean sort of way. But if nothing else, Dean deserved to have his requests respected right now.

"Good night, Dean," Sam said in a soft voice. "I'm right here. Won't leave."

"Thanks, Sammy." Dean's voice wobbled, but didn't crack. "Good night."


End file.
